The state of the Union is clearly not what it should be, and not what it could be.

* Four years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden remains on the loose and Al Qaeda remains a potent force among millions of Muslims

* The threat of terrorism has actually increased, largely as a result of the unnecessary invasion of Iraq

* In the process of our struggle against insurgents and terrorists, we are in danger of losing the very principles we are fighting for as revelations of torture undercut America’s moral strength and leadership

* Highly skilled jobs in the so-called knowledge industry are moving abroad

* More than 45 million Americans lack access to health insurance

* Our physical infrastructure and our system of public education lack essential modernization and reform

* Despite over thirty years of warning, this nation still has no policy to lead us to energy independence

* The tragic incompetence of our government: failing to assist in the terrible humanitarian catastrophe of Katrina, stumbling through a repetitive cycle of inflated rhetoric and crushing disappointments with reconstruction and reform in Iraq and the Middle East, and frustrating millions of American seniors floundering through a poorly designed Medicare prescription drug program.

* The emergence of what appears to be a culture of corruption reaching from lobbyists, through the Republican leadership in Congress, and into the White House itself

The policies followed by your Administration since 9/11 — the belligerent tone, the unilateralism, and the excessive reliance on military force — are not making us safer; they are increasing the dangers we face abroad and distracting us from the most important challenges here at home.

The American people demand better leadership from you, President Bush. It’s time to change course — now — and get America back on track.

More proff that NO ONE in America belives this man anymore.

Bush Drops to 39% again, Cancer more liked than Bush

From Zogby

In the face of rising gas prices, partisan sniping over Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and a resumption of insurgent violence in Iraq, President Bush’s job approval rating has slipped into a post-holiday funk, again dipping below 40%, a new telephone poll by Zogby International shows.

His approval rating almost mirrors the percentage of respondents (40%) who said the nation overall is headed in the right direction.

The deterioration in the President’s numbers appears to be the result of eroding support among the investor class and others who supported him in his 2004 re-election bid, said Pollster John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. And the problem is the Iraq war – just 34% of respondents said Mr. Bush was doing a good or excellent job managing the war, down from 38% approval in a Zogby poll taken in mid-October.

Bush’s overall job approval rating in that poll was at 46%.

She spend her life sharing the message of her late husband Martin Luther King. We will post more information as more comes. Bless her, and bless the message of peace.

Since her husband’s assassination in 1968, Mrs. King has devoted much of her energy and attention to developing programs and building the Atlanta-based Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change as a living memorial to her husband’s life and dream. Situated in the Freedom Hall complex encircling Dr. King’s tomb, The King Center is part of a 23-acre national historic park which includes his birth home, and which hosts over one million visitors a year.

"I think, on many points she educated me. When I met her she was very concerned about the things we are trying to do now. I never will forget the first discussion we had when we met was the whole question of racial injustice and economic injustice and the question of peace. In her college days she had been actively engaged in movements dealing with these problems. I must admit—I wish I could say-to satisfy my masculine ego, that I led her down this path; but I must say we went down together, because she was as actively involved and concerned when we met as she is now."

Excerpted from "Martin Luther King, Jr. A Personal Portrait", interview with Arnold Michaelis, 1967.

You can read more about her at the King Center Website (GREAT SITE)

This may shock you, but someone in the Bush administration lied! I know I know, it is hard to fathom that an administration that has been nothing but truthful to the American people would allow a liar in its circle of integrity. The Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have lied his ass off when he was being confirmed last year. The Washington Post Picks it up from here. This may shock you, but someone in the Bush administration lied! I know I know, it is hard to fathom that an administration that has been nothing but truthful to the American people would allow a liar in its circle of integrity. The Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have lied his ass off when he was being confirmed last year.

The Washington Post Picks it up from here (Bolds, as always are mine).

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator’s question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president’s authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.

In fact, the president did secretly authorize the National Security Agency to begin warrantless monitoring of calls and e-mails between the United States and other nations soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The program, publicly revealed in media reports last month, was unknown to Feingold and his staff at the time Feingold questioned Gonzales, according to a staff member. Feingold’s aides developed the 2005 questions based on privacy advocates’ concerns about broad interpretations of executive power.

Liar! He avoided this, he lied to the Senate, he lied to Americans. As he stood there and said "hypothetical situation" when in fact he knew it was NOT just hypothetical, it was a real thing, and he knew it!

These 19 voted to allow Alito’s debate to close. These 19 Democrats must hate the American people, that is all I can think of, they, like all the Republicans HATE AMERICANS!

• Akaka - HA
• Baucus - MT
• Bingaman - NM
• Bryd - WV <–MINE!
• Cantwell - WA
• Carper - DE
• Conrad - SD
• Dorgan - SD
• Inouye - HA
• Kohl - WI
• Landrie - LA
• Lieberman - CT
• Lincoln - AR
• Ben Nelson - NE
• Bill Nelson - FL
• Pryor - AR
• Rockerfeller - WV <–MINE!
• Salazar - CO
• Johnson - ND

I am sorry if you have one of these Democrats… They are no longer Dems as far as I am concerned.

Ah remember the days when we had a real president, and not a shill for the oil industry.

Today Exxon reported the largest profits ever made by a company. Now at the same time we are told that the reason for higher gas prices is this and that, but the fact of the matter is, if ALL of those factors were true, then oil companies would not be making almost 11 BILLION in a single quarter. Face it, the oil companies are using the “crisis” to make money hand over fist, and our failure of a president is doing nothing. While families choose to eat or fill the car up with gas, Bush sits there… How sad, and how pathetic that his supporters just do not care.

Here is a news story on Exxon making more money then any company has EVER made.

Read…  Bush Administration silenced NASA’s top scientists, he said global warring is far worst then you know.

From ABC (Bolds are mine)

A top government scientist is speaking out about what he says is an effort to keep him quiet about global warming.

 

NASA’s chief climate scientist James Hansen says the space agency’s backlash is part of a Bush administration effort aimed at those trying to sound the alarm on climate change.

He says the administration tried to silence him after he gave a speech last month with this warning: "We’re getting very close to a tipping point in the climate system. If we don’t get off our ‘business as usual’ scenario and begin to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we’re going to get big climate changes."

Hansen says threats from NASA officials came only by phone, with nothing in writing.

"One threat was relayed to me that there would be ‘dire consequences — not specified,’" he told ABC News.

In December, ABC News’ "Good Morning America" reported NASA’s announcement, linking the record high temperatures of 2005 to greenhouse gas emissions.

Said Hansen, "When ‘Good Morning America’ released our data showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year on record, I got calls that they were very unhappy."

 

50,000 troops have been given notice that they will NOT be allowed to get out of the service. These guys joined the “All-volunteer” force, and now they find that while they have done the time they signed up for, they are not going to be allowed to get out as even though there contract is up.

This is something that is also called a back-door draft. What do you call being forced to server in the military, a draft.

My heart goes out to these soldiers, they have done their time, they have lived through one or more tours of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, and they are ready to come home and go to school, most likely the main reason they joined in the first place, and they are told, sorry Charley.

What a sad state our Nation is in, I would like to thank all those that voted for Bush, you have done a great job destroying this nation. Thank!

Here is a news story on this whole mess.

This is my preview and prediction of what, we the American people can expect from our “leader” in tomorrow’s State of the Union…

• He will do his best to stoke the fires of fear, face it, most right-wingers are cowards and are scared of the new boogie-man.
• He needs us all good and scared as it because more clear that he broke the law, and the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. He will lay down the new Republican agenda, that is an agenda that is anti-Americans, anti-middle class, anti-elderly, and anti-troops.
• Mr. Bush will try to get you to buy into the war in Iraq, it is going great they have had elections. Elections are great, I mean look at Palestine, they just elected a known terrorist group.
• Bush will throw you a bone about fuel costs, knowing that everything he says is just a smoke in your ass, like most other things he asks for, it will go unfunded or just die after the news cycle is done with it. He will have in the box next to Laura a soldier, a soldiers mother, or some foreigner that he will use to prop up his failed policy.

In short, word on the street is that he is just going to do his best to prop up the Republican Party, given that is it riddled in scandal, and has shown a clear Anti-Americans agenda.

I have said for sometime that Fear is not going to allow me to allow Bush to run this nation into the ground. I have also made it clear that I think many of you right wingers are COWARDS, at least that is what Bush makes you out to be, he says BOO! and you guys hide under your sofa, at the same time, you allow him to gut your civil rights.

Well here is a OP-ED from the Washington Post, good read. Bolds are MINE

Once upon a time we had a great wartime president who told Americans they had nothing to fear but fear itself. Now we have George W. Bush, who uses fear as a tool of executive power and as a political weapon against his opponents.

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt tried his best to allay his nation’s fears in the midst of an epic struggle against fascism. Bush, as he leads the country in a war whose nature he is constantly redefining, keeps fear alive because it has been so useful. His political grand vizier, Karl Rove, was perfectly transparent the other day when he emerged from wherever he’s been hiding the past few months — consulting omens, reading entrails — and gave the Republican National Committee its positioning statement for the fall.

-snip-

The thing is, fear works. The administration successfully invoked the fear of "mushroom clouds" to win support, or at least acquiescence, for the invasion of Iraq. By the time it was clear there were no weapons of mass destruction, the fear of losing to terrorists on the "central front" had been given primacy. We stopped hearing the name bin Laden so often — no need to bring attention to the fact that he remained at large — until reports emerged of secret CIA prisons, torture and domestic spying.

Bin Laden does remain a threat. He would hit the United States again if he could. We do expect the president to protect us. But a great wartime leader rallies his citizens by informing them and inspiring them. He certainly doesn’t use threats to our national security for political gain. He doesn’t just point at a map and say "Boo."

Now that we have moved to the new URL/blog (Formerly "Life in Bush’s America") and we have moved to a new platform that the blog sits on, Specious Reasoning is seeking to expand the blog from more than the posts of one guy (me) to the posts and thoughts of a small group of like minded people. So, SR is seeing like minded people who want to use this site as a platform to share there thoughts with the world.

What does this dream job pay, not a thing, SR wants people with passion and needs a voice.

Our main areas of topic fall into a few very distinct buckets: Bush, and the Republicans, and why they hate Americans. The Evangelical nuts that have allowed politics to hijack there faith, and at times social issues like gay issues and so on.

I hope you understand that there will be some rules to safeguard the content of this site, given that there are people that love Bush more than they love America, your posts will be held before published and so on, until your creditability is established.

So, if you have a thought, and would like to voice them, create a user account and them drop me a line via the Private Messaging system.

I hate to say it but my Senator, Robert Byrd, is one of the Democrats who say he will vote for the confirmation of the right wing hack Alto for the Supreme Court of the Unites States.

I am very Disappointed in you Sen. Byrd. Please hear me when I say I think you are doing a diservice to those of us that live in your state.

My right-wing buddy IM’ed me and said, “Byrds of a feather”. Alto is a known races, and your history is a little shady, please don’t let them say “Byrds of a Feather”

If you live in WV, call him and urge him to rethink this…

# Fax your letter to Charleston office at 304-343-7144;
# Call Washington office at 202-224-3954. If you leave your name and telephone number, your call will be returned as soon as possible;
# Call Charleston office at 304-342-5855;

When you call, please be respectful and remember, Sen. Byrd is on our side, just not in this one issue. Help bring him back into the fold.

The Hypocrisy Runs Wild…

Bush wants to spy on you, he has said he does not care if it is illegal or not, but get this… He had a chance to change the law back in 2002, and OPPOSED IT…

This was the power that they are now using, but they opposed it when Congress came to them and asked if they wanted the power.

From Unclaimed Territory

In light of Gen. Hayden’s new claim yesterday that the reason the Bush Administration decided to eavesdrop outside of FISA is because the "probable cause" standard for obtaining a FISA warrant was too onerous (and prevented them from obtaining warrants they needed to eavesdrop), there is a fact which I have not seen discussed anywhere but which now appears extremely significant, at least to me.

In June, 2002, Republican Sen. Michael DeWine of Ohio introduced legislation (S. 2659) which would have eliminated the exact barrier to FISA which Gen. Hayden yesterday said is what necessitated the Administration bypassing FISA. Specifically, DeWine’s legislation proposed:

to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to modify the standard of proof for issuance of orders regarding non-United States persons from probable cause to reasonable suspicion. . . .

In other words, DeWine’s bill, had it become law, would have eliminated the "probable cause" barrier (at least for non-U.S. persons) which the Administration is now pointing to as the reason why it had to circumvent FISA.

During that time, the Administration was asked to advise Congress as to its position on this proposed amendment to loosen the standard for obtaining FISA warrants, and in response, they submitted a Statement from James A. Baker, the Justice Department lawyer who oversees that DoJ’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, which is the group that "prepares and presents all applications for electronic surveillance and physical search under the Act to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court or Court)." If anyone would be familiar with problems in obtaining FISA warrants, it would be Baker.

-snip-

So, in June, 2002, the Administration refused to support elimination of the very barrier ("probable cause") which Gen. Hayden claimed yesterday necessitated the circumvention of FISA. In doing so, the Administration identified two independent reasons for opposing this amendment. One reason was that the Justice Department was not aware of any problems which the Administration was having in getting the warrants it needed under FISA:

The practical concern involves an assessment of whether the current "probable cause" standard has hamstrung our ability to use FISA surveillance to protect our nation. We have been aggressive in seeking FISA warrants and, thanks to Congress’s passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, we have been able to use our expanded FISA tools more effectively to combat terrorist activities. It may not be the case that the probable cause standard has caused any difficulties in our ability to seek the FISA warrants we require, and we will need to engage in a significant review to determine the effect a change in the standard would have on our ongoing operations. If the current standard has not posed an obstacle, then there may be little to gain from the lower standard and, as I previously stated, perhaps much to lose.

So as of June, 2002 — many months after the FISA bypass program was ordered — the DoJ official who was responsible for overseeing the FISA warrant program was not aware (at least when he submitted this Statement) of any difficulties in obtaining warrants under the FISA "probable cause" standard, and for that reason, the Administration would not even support DeWine’s amendment. If - as the Administration is now claiming - they had such significant difficulties obtaining the warrants they wanted for eavesdropping that they had to go outside of FISA, surely Baker - who was in charge of obtaining those warrants - would have been aware of them. And, if the Administration was really having the problems under FISA, they would have supported DeWine’s Amendment. But they didn’t.

The second concern the Administration expressed with DeWine’s amendment was that it was quite possibly unconstitutional:

The Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is analyzing relevant Supreme Court precedent to determine whether a "reasonable suspicion" standard for electronic surveillance and physical searches would, in the FISA context, pass constitutional muster. The issue is not clear cut, and the review process must be thorough because of what is at stake, namely, our ability to conduct investigations that are vital to protecting national security. If we err in our analysis and courts were ultimately to find a "reasonable suspicion" standard unconstitutional, we could potentially put at risk ongoing investigations and prosecutions.

End quote from Unclaimed Territory

So Bush’s Own lawyers said the very thing that he is doing "was quite possibly unconstitutional"

The other great thing about this story is it was all broken by the BLOGS, the main stream media picked it up only after the blogs wrote the story. Glenn of Unclaimed Territory broke this! Now you can read about it in the Washington Post, and the LA Times.

"A filibuster is a radical tool," the editorial admitted. "It’s easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court."

And I agree, this man is part of the group that wants to install Bush as a King. He also hates Americans, and loves the Incs. Link

Is Bush in trouble, well when you have Republican Senator Arlen Specter starts asking questions like the ones sent to the “Attorney General” Alberto Gonzales. Senator Specter, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is asking some questions that make it clear that Bush broke the law.

You need to read these 15 questions yourself.